We discovered this week that Lionsgate has another nifty facial manipulation tool in support of another one of its movies, The Last Witch Hunter. Only instead of applying “Capitol” looks, the face is transformed into “witch” style from the movies, and then you use potions to hide your inner witch. We haven’t seen the movie, so this could be wrong, but we’ll go along with it for the fun of using this tool. It’s not as snazzy as the Mockingjay app, so instead of being super high tech and scanning your face, this little feature works from still images (the image just needs to be facing forward, not in profile).

Almost instantly I knew which pictures I had to use to try this baby out… Not ME. NO! Our favorite Hunger Games movie characters!

So in honor of promotional crossover, Halloween, and general hilarity, I give you our Hunger Games favorites, if they were in the Last Witch Hunter universe.

Katniss looks even more menacing now, huh Snow?

Hijacked Peeta has a whole new meaning now.

Prim looks less of a witch a more a teen having a goth phase.

Gale, a few years after the war goes all mountain man (and Witch Hunter, if Vin Diesel’s look in the movie is any clue).

The polls keep on coming, and with it more picture reveals of our favorite characters. The trend of the fandom’s choices was a bit depressing for a while. Cause we kept voting for characters that don’t make it to the end of the story!

Yes, the back-half of Mockingjay is brutal. And whoever is in charge of picking these character pictures is very subtly choosing interestingly painful moments to share.

First, there’s this still of Finnick, in black battle gear, serious expression, with his face partially in shadow. If they were trying for ominous with a simple character image, message received.

Then on to Coin. Looking quite fab and proud of herself at what we presume is the Snow “execution” scene. Sorry, lady, someone’s about to have the shock of her life.

Then, the pic that was a big surprise – because for the first time they show Prim out wearing a protective vest. We can guess she’s in the Capitol, and what is coming for her very soon. A very effective image that stirred more emotion in us than that whole “For Prim” video.

Finally after four days of revealing characters that will die (Messalla was the first reveal), we got a little relief with Haymitch. With all the stills released previously in this gold, seemingly ornate room, we feel pretty confident this is the scene where the victors vote on holding another Hunger Games. Cue Haymitch’s “strategy face.”

Today is the choice of brother vs. brother.

Which brother would you follow into battle? Winning vote reveals exclusive NEW image!

**SPOILERS GALORE!**

Starting with this question: IS IT REALLY EVEN A MOCKINGJAY PART 2 TRAILER?

Yes, it’s over two minutes long and it hints at the importance of Katniss and Prim in the final movie. But it’s only got a few seconds of footage from Mockingjay Part 2! Ninety-seven percent of this sucker is a recap of the previous movies! Isn’t it most of a promo or a sister-centric franchise trailer than anything?

If you’re not sure, watch again and decide for yourself!

Perhaps it’s an unpopular opinion but we’re just gonna go out there and say it: This one just didn’t get to us.

We know the final movie really needs to emphasize the importance of Prim so fans really feel the loss of Prim as something horrific. We struggled with this in both the books and the movies. We get that Katniss loves Prim dearly but we were never felt invested in her personally. Don’t get us wrong– It’s sad that she dies! We see Katniss mourn and we mourn for her, because anyone can imagine the pain of losing someone close to them. When we watch the movie, we’ll probably get a bit emotional when it happens. But in the meantime, this is kinda just feels like stalling without actually giving us new things from the movie.

Visually, this is a fun experience. The smoky, blended images lend a really unique look to this, but it sometimes reminds us of a good fan-made video or a music video rather than an actual studio-made trailer for a major franchise. But we suppose that’s a compliment to fan video creators, right?!

REMINDER: Fragile 12-year-old is fragile.

The song, however, kills it. In a bad way. M83 is a talented group and I think most of their songs are a great choice for films and film promotion, but this doesn’t work for us here. It’s properly moody, but the random yell-y bits in between nostalgic dialogue were super jarring and took us right out of the moment.

Of course, it also comes back to another big question: IS THIS A GIANT SPOILER?

We don’t think all unfamiliar audiences will see this trailer and immediately know that Prim is going to die, but it certainly raises red flags. We’ve all seen enough movies to know that when a relationship that’s NOT romantic is emphasized, something significant is about to happen to them. More often than not, one of the people involved is about to die. And this focuses very specifically on Prim– not on family, not on District 12. It’s Prim-o-rama!

Not to mention the cyclical clusterfuck of a “possible spoiler” warning inadvertently making people aware enough to look for said possible spoilers when they wouldn’t have found them otherwise.

So Lionsgate going “SISTERS ARE IMPORTANT, Y’ALL!” doesn’t quite guarantee death, but it hints at death well enough. They likely made the trailer with the diehard types in mind, but we diehards also like the unfiltered, unspoiled reactions of the non-book reading masses on occasion!

So today we’re going to get serious because we work out all our feelings by relating them to books!

This is an apology to a fictional character– more specifically, Primrose Everdeen.

At the Mockingjay Part 2 panel at Comic-Con, Conan O’Brien joked with Willow Shields, saying “I was so mad at you when you went back for the cat!” And mostly, our reaction was “Well.. duh.” It was a rash, irresponsible move made by a young girl who’s almost too sensitive for this world. Buttercup was an adult cat and hell, cats don’t even live that long. Why would anyone risk anything for a cat?! Katniss, while we loves her sister, thinks she’s an overly sentimental piece of work when it comes to this issue and audiences kinda do too.

Well, I’m sorry, Prim. It’s unfair to judge you because I really do understand.

This picture is roughly 17 years, 8 months old. I’m 10-years-old– hence the bad hair, fashion, etc. The puppy here is Jake, my family’s Jack Russell Terrier who died of old age this past Sunday, four days before my 28th birthday. He was the best dog ever… though perhaps I’m biased.

And truthfully, I totally would’ve gone back from him in an emergency situation.

It’s not that uncommon. In scary situations, people rescue their pets. They sometimes get injured or even die themselves in the attempt. To some, that just sounds crazy, but not to me. I don’t consider myself all too sentimental, but pets become an important part of your life in a way that most humans don’t even. They’re a furry ball of friendship, playfulness, and companionship without an ounce of judgment. And dammit, we all need some of that! So risking it all for our animal friends makes sense.

It’s silly to think of the continuum of the story after the final chapter (but before the epilogue) because everything is just head canon from that point on, but we can’t even imagine how Katniss felt when Buttercup finally went. We see the two forming a bond over the loss of Prim at the end of Mockingjay, and I’d like to believe that they stuck together and learned to love each other. That means that things would be rough for Katniss not just because she lost a pet, but because that pet was one of the few things she had that linked back to her sister. And urgh… we can’t even.

Though the most minor of minor characters in The Hunger Games, Buttercup makes a major impact on the plot and the characters’ emotional wellbeing, which says something big. So we get it, Prim. And really, you’re awesome for doing it.

And Without That, There’d Be No Buttercup: Evil Overlord Fanon Memes,The Girl With The Pearl

Lionsgate is starting Comic-Con week with a bang with the release of 8 cool character posters for Mockingjay Part 2.

And YESSSSS we like it.

All the posters have the tag UNITE – THE REVOLUTION IS ABOUT ALL OF US, which ties in to the Three Finger Salute billboards from a few weeks ago. And everyone is branded with the sign of the Mockingjay, in red, mimicking warpaint. But everyone has a unique word on the left side to set things apart.

Katniss is PANEM UNITE which makes sense. Peeta is SONS cause why not? (And what’s with the light eyes? Does hijacking make them finally… blue? Kidding. But not)

Gale is all about the BROTHERS, though we wish we could’ve seen some of his actual brothers in the movie. And Johanna appropriately brings up the rebels. We can’t tell if she’s really sad here, or just really fucking annoyed to be photographed for these things. Probably both.

Newly married Finnick represents the husbands (hey the world knows because of the teaser trailer). And Prim gives us sisterhood feels. And the blood-red color on both these faces is even more chilling when you know the ending.

Finally we have Cressida and Boggs representing the activists and the soldiers.

The black and red of these posters are VERY INTERESTING. They of course set the mood very well, but we also wonder if they fit nicely with a red Mockingjay-suited Katniss propo to come?

One additional thing that we liked, and may have just happened because it worked out like that and no other reason, but it’s still remarkable. Katniss’s poster is not DAUGHTERS UNITE, it’s PANEM UNITE. One of the very few redeeming qualities of Panem is that women have authority in this world as well, and it’s no big deal. It’s just how things are. This will be further enforced in the last saga with Commanders Paylor and Lyme. And Panem’s symbolic leader, the Mockingjay, while a daughter, represents the entire country, so they correctly chose to emphasize that first.

You’ve probably noticed that there’s been lots of goodness from The Hunger Games Exhibition all around the web, including over on our Instagram page. Now, we’re sharing all the photos from our Hunger Games Exhibition with you!

If you like these glimpses, stay tuned for a detailed report on the super fun exhibition!

Kait with Adam from HG Fireside Chat and Brittany from Down With The Capitol

“The Sister Portrait” is a chilling look at Katniss and Prim from the upcoming coffee table book “Tim Palen: Photographs from The Hunger Games”. A commemorative print is going around at Cannes (because apparently the rich industry folk at Cannes need that) and Vanity Fair debuted it for the rest of the masses as well.

OBSERVE!

Let’s just say that there is something gut-wrenching and foreboding about this image and it has EVERYTHING TO DO with Willow Shields’ face. It’s like her eyes are piercing our souls and screaming “Dammit, I’m about to die!” Katniss is looking away trying to figure stuff out, but Prim is looking at you because… Oh shit, it’s about to go down!

We must admit, we started looking through promotional images and paparazzi photos from Mockingjay Part 2 scenes to see if Katniss’ Mockingjay outfit has never been covered in bondage weapons straps. It looks like that’s unique to the photo shoot! Or it’s a design that was considered but ultimately scratched.

While Prim blends in with the old timey looks and the muted colors, Katniss sticks out like a sore thumb. Though they’re standing together, they look very separate. We’re having a hard time deciding if that’s intentional artistry of some sort or photoshop mishap.

But back to our initial point– Is that really Mockingjay Part 2 promotion? The image could easily be from Part 1 or Part 2. Nothing about it specifies either way. If it turns out there’s a whole collection of more specific Part 2 character portraits with this same look and feel, sure! Otherwise, it’s kinda just promotion for Tim Palen’s book (which is cool, but not as cool as obvious, tangible promotion for the final film in a major franchise.) WE NEED MORE in order to make that call!

Because RIGHT NOW feels like a good time for character posters,The Girl With The Pearl

Hold on to your hats, ladies and gents! We’ve got the exclusive debut of a stunning new TV spot for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1!

Ready to get emotional? This spot is going to take your Peeta feels to a WHOLE. NEW. LEVEL.

WE CAN’T EVEN HANDLE IT!

Lionsgate has clearly noticed that all it takes is a teeny bit of Peeta to drive this fandom into squealing fangirly oblivion.

Though we’ve seen the footage previously, seeing it all re-cut with Peeta’s full warning speech to Katniss layered over each scene is tense, thrilling, and exactly what we need from these TV spots! Readers know what’s coming and anticipate the fallout eagerly, while movie oriented fans will be intrigued by all the drama.

We’re a little surprised by just how much of Katniss and Peeta’s struggles have been revealed in the TV spots, but you know what? BRING THE HINTS AND REVEALS! We love them! They give off a wonderful sense of foreboding! If this is what they’re willing to show, what secrets and other big, incredible scenes are nestled away until movie time?

The final trailer was released this morning, and that means one thing– collective fandom flailing across the globe, and a patented Victor’s Village reaction post featuring all three of us. So without further nattering, here’s the trailer, and under the cut will be our lovely non politically correct reactions!

BURNING AND STUFFJJ: Yep let’s talk burning!Them There Eyes: First off, everybody state where they watched the final trailer! JJ: In my office cube, with headphones though.TTE: Grocery store parking lot!The Girl With The Pearl: Hiding in the work bathroom. ALL TIME LOW.TTE: The Girl With The Pearl wins!JJ: You gotta do what you gotta doTTE: Exactly, plus I warned not to have food stuffs around me, in case I flailed, screamed, or choked on anything.TGWTP: Winning, in the worst way possible.TTE: Hey, at least your not Peeta! Which brings us to the fact that today was yet another day of extreme Peeta-Feels.TGWTP: Poor Peeta! That line delivery was beautiful though! JJ: Every shot of Peeta we see gets worse for him. Thanks, Francis. But Josh totally owned it. So well done!TTE: I know, but we’re total gluttons for tortured Peeta. And yep, Josh is winning all the emotive awards today.JJ: He’s mastered the teary eyes. I imagine we’ll see more of that. And it will destroy us even more.TGWTP: But the feeling bad is a good thing! No one can say they don’t understand Katniss’ Peeta-Feels. JJ: We all feel Katniss’s pain!TTE: I’m looking forward to feeling destroyed by Josh Hutcherson’s acting abilities.JJ: Yes, let him shine, especially since his screen time will be limited.TGWTP: I feel like Josh deserves much more acting credit than he gets.TTE: He’s been making us cry since Bridge to Tarabithia.TGWTP: This movie could open a major doorway as he’s an adult actor now.TTE: You mean it could turn him into the next Ryan Gosling? Or maybe Jake Gyllanhaal?TGWTP: I could get behind that!JJ: I approve of all these.TTE: If he’s going to base his career on anything, I’d hope it would be those two.